is a hybrid music genre, usually incorporating elements of hip-hop, crunk, house, and dub music. It is characterized by crisp snares, sweeping sub-bass, pitched-down vocals and high-pitched repeating sounds that accompany lyrics often concerned with drug dealing or "the trap". It originated in the American Southern hip hop scene and has ample similarities with crunk music. Producers in the Southern hip-hop scene who have contributed to the development of trap include Juicy J and Mannie Fresh. The first wave of 'pure' trap producers includes:Shawty Redd, DJ Toomp, Zaytoven and Drumma Boy. As the mid- and late-2000's progressed, a new crop of producers took over the scene - Mike WiLL Made It, Lex Luger, Southside, Sonny Digital, Lil Lody, Drumma Drama and Young Chop. The second wave of trap producers have incorporated sounds from other music genres like electro, breakbeat, house music and dubstep. Trap has been gaining popularity since 2004 due to the release of landmark albums such as T.I.'s Trap Muzik, Young Jeezy's Lets Get It: Thug Motivation 101 and Gucci Mane's Trap House.

Styles inspired by trap music:

Trap music has recently been making a new school comeback in many new forms such as “Trap”, “Chirp”, “SeaPunk”, “PsyTrap”, and “TrapStep”. A common characteristic of each genre is the manipulation of vocal samples over synthetic instruments. Earliest known examples can be found by artists such as Triple Six Mafia, UGK, Swisha House, and Gucci Mane. Tempos range widely from 128-175bpm. A subgenre of trap, originating in Chicago, began gaining mainstream popularity in 2012. Recent examples of popular trap artists include Chester Grooves, RL Grime, Varien, XXYYXX, JWLS, Party Favor, Luminox, Baauer and Flosstradamus.

Second wave:

Trap made a comeback in 2010, with the success of Waka Flocka's Flockaveli and Rick Ross' Teflon Don. Further releases by Young Jeezy, Gucci Mane, Future, 2 Chainz and Chief Keef have significantly increased the visibility of trap music